Cherian Varghese on AI integration
From Exclusive from LEAP 2025: Zoom, Oracle Power AI in Saudi Arabia · · Gulf Business
“Zoom has introduced an AI component on top of it so Zoom has now SaaSified an AI into the portfolio and that's again hosted on Oracle Cloud. Since it is AI based you need a lot of GPUs, it needs a lot of decision making, it talks about a lot of machine learning and they felt that is best to extend the Oracle relationship of Zoom's existing OCI relationship to carry it forward, put it on the AI map and bring in all the new features.”
On , Cherian Varghese, Senior Vice President of Technology - Middle East and Africa at Oracle Corporation, spoke about AI integration during Exclusive from LEAP 2025: Zoom, Oracle Power AI in Saudi Arabia on Gulf Business.
About Cherian Varghese
Cherian Varghese, Senior Vice President of Technology for the Middle East and Africa at Oracle, has been a prominent voice on artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure in 2025. In a September 2025 TEDx talk at AURAK, he examined whether AI augments or undermines human intelligence, stating that AI will automate many jobs to "95% perfection" and that the technology is at an early stage, with society having "traversed only 5% of the AI journey." He also discussed the Stargate project, a conglomerate involving Oracle, OpenAI, and a SoftBank-funded company, and warned that AI-generated content could be manipulated by politicians to alter historical narratives, placing responsibility on ethics and compliance leaders. At LEAP 2025 in Riyadh, Varghese announced that Zoom had introduced an AI component hosted on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, building on their existing partnership. He described Oracle's strategy in the region as a hybrid model of public and sovereign data centers, citing data sovereignty requirements in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Gulf states. Varghese noted that Oracle has been operating in Saudi Arabia for 30 years and now has the largest number of public data centers of any vendor in the region, with sovereign cloud partnerships with STC and du Telecom. He characterized the current moment as the beginning of an exponential growth phase for AI, predicting it will become as ubiquitous as the internet.